Design of a Hospital Burrow to Treat Sarcoptic Mange in Wombats

Sarcoptic mange in wombats has reached catastrophic proportions, causing mass decline of at least 70% of bare-nosed wombats in Australia across NSW, Victoria, and Tasmania. Some local wombat populations (and their genetic diversity) are already extinct. Sleepy Burrows Wombat Sanctuary has had repeated success administering an alternative oral treatment with wombats in quarantined care, as opposed to unsuccessful conventional topical treatments. This new and effective approach significantly decreases treatment time and wombats recover fully.

This crowdfunding campaign will raise vital funds for a design research study at Sleepy Burrows Wombat Sanctuary in collaboration with the QUT Design Lab to achieve two aims:

To design and trial purpose-built quarantine hospital burrow enclosures to ease the treatment administration of sarcoptic mange in bare-nosed wombats;

To document, analyse and evaluate this new mange treatment procedure and contextual factors applied to wombats in quarantine care using the new burrow design.